


Translucent

by headintheclouds



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, Fluff, M/M, Opaques, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Supernatural Elements, The Foundation, Translucents, creeping, hopefully a lot less stupid than I'm making it sound, invisible people, lots of crazy shit, marco you creep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headintheclouds/pseuds/headintheclouds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems so long ago. Everything before him does. My memories before are like a story described in passing, a conversation I happen to overhear. They don’t feel real. Not like something I lived. Only stories. </p><p>Just words, really. </p><p>I felt nothing back then. For two thousand years, I felt nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Day I Realized, and Everything was Changed

“So, what’s your name?” 

“I am B2184569O”

“That’s what you are called?” 

“Yes. When I am called, that is how they call me.” 

“Well...alrighty then. Do you have a nickname? Something, uh, a little easier to say, perhaps?”

“I don’t know” 

“Okay. No worries, um, B18-” 

“He calls me Marco” 

“Marco then. Good. Marco’s good. So Marco, I’m just going to ask you a few questions. You just have to answer them honestly. It’s quite an honor for me to be the first permitted to speak with you. Quite an honor. Just remember, everyone watching wants to be your friend. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

“I do not think I’m afraid.” 

“Good. Neither are we. We won’t hurt you, as long as you promise us the same.”

“I can’t hurt you.”

“That’s right.” 

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“Now why’s that, Marco? The reports told us you are strong. And powerful. Very powerful. We were quite impressed.”

“I was strong.” 

“What changed?” 

“They cut me off.” 

“Who’s they?”

"..."

“You need to answer the question, Marco.”

“The Foundation.”

 

 

 

You don’t see us. But we are there. Always there. If you are alone, there is one of us with you. If you are with a friend, there are two. And so the pattern continues. But we are always there. 

We’re obligated to watch you at all times. 24/7 surveillance. Everyday, everynight, we watch. 

Our eyes must be on your face. That is priority. We must not disobey. None of us really know what happens if we do. None of us have ever tried. The Opaques seem to think the worst punishment a criminal can be sentenced to is death. We know they’re wrong. There are so many things, all so much worse. Things that are indescribable. 

Which is a paradox in itself, I suppose, because when you label a thing as indescribable you are, in fact, describing it. I’m sorry. I digress. But we live for paradoxes, us Translucents. Maybe that’s because we are, in fact, paradoxes ourselves.

I am B2184569O.

This is a translation of course, in a language you can understand. If I said my name to you in my own tongue, you would not hear it. If I wrote it down, your eyes would see only blank paper.

B2184569O is a direct translation; if you were to translate the meaning it would be something like “He whose face has been kissed by the butterflies,”. When I told this to him, he laughed. He cupped my cheek in his hand. 

But the full translation’s rather long, so I will use the direct one, as a time saver.

I’ve always been B2184569O. Since I was formed. It seems so long ago. Everything before him does. My memories before are like a story described in passing, a conversation I happen to overhear. They don’t feel real. Not like something I lived, something I experienced. Only stories. 

Just words, really. 

I felt nothing back then. 

For two thousand years, I felt nothing. I watched, like I was supposed to. I watched, I recorded. I made final judgements. At the end, I greeted and I consoled. I was whatever was needed of me, a shoulder for crying, a bag for punching, an answer to the neverending questions. At the end, I carried them away, to whichever place I felt they should go. And there were so many differents ends. So many different faces whose stories and secrets belonged to me as well as them.

I knew each soul better than they knew themselves, easily. Better than I know myself, even. I watched hearts break, I watched them struggle to mend. I saw loss, I saw tragedy, I saw joy. I watched all that happens between the beginning and the end of a life. Over and over. 

But I never felt anything. 

Not once. 

That’s against our code, after all. 

 

 

I feel I’m being rude. Chances are, you are a little confused. Normally, you meet us only after your soul has left your lifeless corpse, so we are doing things a bit out of order here. I’m sorry for the mix up.

If it’s any comfort, it’s still a bit bewildering for me as well. You’re in your body, and yet you can hear me. And you’re not him. How odd. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this. 

We’ll just soldier through it together, I suppose. 

Let’s see. I’ll do my best to explain. You are one of the Opaques. You are real, you are solid, you are there. You live and you die.

I am a Translucent. I am not, and I do not. 

Sometimes, It takes a moment for people process this. I do seem like I’m there when they finally see me, I suppose. They tell me this, they touch me, they say I am solid and they can feel me. They say that means I’m wrong. I explain to them, I only seem like I am real because they no longer are.

That usually silences them. 

Sometimes they ask me how long I’ve been with them. I say I’ve never left. 

And then of course I leave them. 

To me that’s sort of ironic, but maybe I’m reading too much into it. I don’t know. 

Sometimes, they call us ghosts. They call us reapers, or angels. I’ve been addressed as God a few times. These are all human concepts, and frankly, they are bullshit. None of those exist. 

There is only the Foundation. 

You may also be wondering; why are we here? What is our purpose? 

Well, why are any of us here? 

My belief is we are here to choose for you, in the end. We watch you grow. We learn you. We study you. Eventually, we know you. Better than you know you. When all is over, we take what we have learned and we pick out a door. 

We are here to help, in the end. 

Anyway. Now you know what I am. Now you know what you are to me. Now, I can begin my story. 

 

 

It started with a baby. A baby boy. I was with him, from the second his skin touched the cool air of the world. I analyzed him, apathetic. 

He was an average baby. Average length, average height, average features. Wet curls snaked their way around his skull. His face was red, scrunched, and screaming. 

The dark haired nurse held him a foot or so away from her body, looking down at him. Scrutinizing. Checking for cracks, maybe. The mother was gasping, panting, staring up at the messy little figure held above her. The father was talking, asking questions, congratulating. Every word that escaped from his mouth was saturated with relief. The baby just screamed.

Births are so noisy. They're chaotic. Death is quiet. 

I stood, watching, beside the doorway. I acknowledged the other Translucents crowded into the small hospital room. There were four others, one for each Opaque. The mom, the dad, and two nurses. Four.

I looked one to my left in the face, and covered my eyes with my palms. My fingers were spread, triangles of hospital between them. Through them I could see the other Translucent mirroring my gesture. A second passed. I brought my hands back down to my sides. So did she.

Repeat three more times, a greeting for each of the watching figures. 

This is a gesture of respect, older than even the oldest Translucent. Older than time, some say. It means peace. It means you are not seen, continue watching. Continue watching, in peace and unseen.

I thought the sentiment was unnecessary. I’d never lived any other way. 

Throughout the entire interaction, I’d kept one eye trained on the baby. One of the relatively few physical differences between you and me is my ability to move my eyes separately from each other. It really is more convenient, I’d imagine. One eye must always be on our Opaque.

No exceptions. Always.

For me it’s always my right eye, but that’s just a personal preference. 

The baby was still screaming. It was earsplitting. Earthshaking. That was the first record I made since the Assignment; Jean Kirstein was a noisy baby. 

It was also the first crack in my perception that the boy was average. Someone so small having lungs so large cannot be normal. 

It cracked again when I saw his eyes. They were nicer than most Opaque eyes. The color of gingerbread. 

My last Opaque had liked gingerbread. She’d kept a jar filled with it in her kitchen. Each morning, the women twisted the lid of the jar open with arthritic hands, taking out a smiling cookie. Every day, she had one with her oatmeal. When her grandchildren came to visit her, she would shuffle over to where they sat and silently place a gingerbread man into each tiny palm. 

She did not cry when she met me. She had looked up into my face with wise eyes framed with sagging skin. They were old eyes. Something about her unnerved me. Despite my age, I was a child standing before her. 

Usually, you are all so young.

I had led her by the hand to the door I had picked out for her. A simple door, painted eggshell. An iron latch held it closed. The scent of mowed lawns hung in the air. 

I had been confident with my decision. 

One of the nurses, the one with the dark hair and the dark circles, was leaving. In her arms she cradled the baby with the gingerbread eyes. 

I followed them. 

I did not recognize the nurse’s Translucent. We walked beside each other, behind our Opaques. Neither of us spoke, of course. Speaking is not permitted outside the Foundation. 

It was a companionable silence, I thought. 

 

For your sake, I will summarize the next few months for you. The details are not so important. I watched the baby. The baby did baby things. You have all watched babies before, I’ll bet. 

 

Someone was watching you watching that baby.

Someone is watching you right now. 

Don’t look over your shoulder, they are probably not behind you. They need to see your face. Smile a little more, perhaps. If we had feelings, I think seeing you happy would make us happy. 

We don’t though, so if you don’t smile it’s probably fine. 

 

 

So the baby did baby things, one thing being growing and learning to do different baby things. I have watched many babies grow. An uncountable number of babies. None of this was new for me. 

For the most part, Jean Kirstein was well behaved. He cried when he was hungry or tired or when he wanted a clean diaper, but most babies seem to do that. It’s sort of embarrassing, really. I’m glad I never was one. 

The mother and father were not bad people. They were cowardly. Opaques have the tendency of labeling people who are scared of doing what is right as people who want what is wrong. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kirstein were scared of being parents, so they avoided the task altogether. 

Luckily for them, they were very wealthy and they found they could replace their presence in their son’s life with piles of money. Nannies were hired. The best toys were ordered from the best catalogues. A room the size of the first floor of your house was christened the nursery. 

I would look into those sleepy gingerbread eyes and I would think to myself that this child would grow up alone. All alone in an empty mansion. An empty mansion full of empty-minded people. Empty-minded people with empty hearts. 

I remember wondering if he would notice. Many don’t. 

I think that I thought I pitied him, before I realized I could not feel.

 

 

At five months old, the words “Jean” and “average” were antonyms.

His features were neat and well proportioned, yet unexceptional. The gingerbread eyes were warmer than most eyes, but that was not unprecedented. He did look average.

To all the nannies, maids, and servants who made their way into the nursery, he was a healthy little boy who was not yet capable of understanding how rich he was, and therefore worthy of their respect. A sweet boy with a bit of a temper, but a controllable one. His health was fine. Unremarkable. He did act average.

I quaked in my boots. 

I knew there was something wrong. 

Why? 

What? 

I had no idea. 

Tearing at my hair, pacing back and forth, debating with myself, I watched him with one eye. This was a change for me. I am usually calm. Stationary. I watch impassively. At the Foundation, I am praised for this. 

I was not being impassive. 

I think back and wonder if the uncertainty drove me mad. Maybe I was mad, and that is why I am where I am. And he is where he is. And you are where you are. 

If I had been sane, I would have handled things differently. 

The Translucents of the servants and the nannies were in the nursery often, trailing after their Opaques. I would greet them, they would greet me. We would watch together. When they were there, I would try to keep still. I would try to look calm and in control. I did not want to be reported. 

I often felt eyes on me. 

 

 

I will never forget the day I realized. 

It was a stormy day, a cold one. Sheets of snow were dropped from the sky, unfolding and billowing to the ground, painting the world outside the nursery window a pearly white. The window was impressive, more of a glass wall than a window, really. Elegant white curtains were drawn back to show us the storm. A white frame on a white painting. I thought it was beautiful. 

The nannies and the servants did not agree. They worried, huddling together. Penguins, shielding themselves from the cold. They murmured quiet concerns about road conditions. 

I remember thinking it was a shame Opaques so often miss the beauty in beautiful things. You have such little time to appreciate it. 

I focused back on the boy. I knew that in no time at all he would be just like them, consumed in superficiality and trivial problems which never really amounted to anything. So was the life of an Opaque. 

I gazed at him. Vaguely wondering what he would become. 

Warm gingerbread eyes. 

It struck me. 

I stumbled, stumbled backwards. Backed up against the wall. My heart pounded in my chest, filling my eardrums with loud crashes. I felt. I felt fear. It ran in my veins like a drug, flowing through my body. My nerves where igniting, they were burning. Something had broken. Or maybe something was fixed. I still don't know.

This was new, it was all so new. I was petrified. I wanted, so badly, to tear my gaze from his. Five months, and it never registered. I had always overlooked it. But now I saw. 

It was not the gaze of the other Translucents that had been on me. 

Gingerbread eyes seared into my own. 

He did not look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for reading! 
> 
> This is my very first attempt at publishing a fic. Hopefully it was okay! Any feedback you can give me would be greatly appreciated, I love feedback. I'm really looking forward to continuing this, there are so many ideas flying around in my head! It's been so much fun to write so far. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as thatgirlwhodoesnttalk
> 
> Blue skies always! :)


	2. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm still trying to get used to the crazy idea that people can actually read the silly things I'm writing. It's sort of scary. But it's great and really exciting. 
> 
> Thanks so much for all the encouragement and kind words on the last chapter, each and every comment and kudos absolutely made my day :) 
> 
> This chapter is a little slow, but stay tuned. From here on out things should be nice and action-packed. 
> 
> I'll probably be doing a little editing on this chapter over the next couple days.

We dream, you know. 

Well I guess you probably don’t. But we do dream. 

Although we don’t dream like you dream.

For one thing, we cannot close our eyes. If we close our eyes, we cannot watch you. And we must always be watching you. 

You do know _that_ by now, I hope. 

Our dreams are splashes of color and light. Translucent images, through which we still see the world. Our dreams are less like stories, and more like art. 

They are intricate. They are ethereal. 

Dreams are a welcome distraction from the dull lives of the Opaques. 

We are told not to dream. Dreams are dangerous, they say. Dreams weaken your focus, dreams tear you from your Opaque and throw you into another world. Stay by your Opaque’s side, they command us. Do not dream. 

The Code is strictly followed. The Foundation keeps it that way. Yet everyone breaks this law, at some point or other. 

Everyone dreams. 

 

 

Sometimes, in the end, my Opaque will look at me. And they will shake their head. 

“I am dreaming,” they will say. “I know I am dreaming.” 

They close their eyes. They pinch their skin. They tell me to slap their faces, even. 

“This is a dream,” they protest. “It’s all just a dream.”

I listen. I do not correct them; that has never helped. I wait. 

“Any minute now,” they assure me, confident. “Any minute now, I will wake up and be warm in my bed. My wife will be beside me. I will wake her and tell her what a horrid dream I’ve had, and she will soothe me. Our children will be asleep in the room down the hall. In the morning, I will drive them to school.” 

I listen; I wait.

Their protests grow weaker as denial melts into doubt. 

“Any minute now,” they say.

Doubt melts into acceptance. 

Sometimes acceptance is anger. Sometimes acceptance is fear. Sometimes it is sadness. 

Occasionally, it is peace. 

I like when it is peace. 

I lead them to their door. 

 

 

I listen. But I never understood. Not until the day I realized. 

_How could you confuse a dream with reality?,_ I would wonder. _Are you that unfamiliar with your own mind?_

_Are your dreams truly so potent that you can forget the order and the patterns of the world?_

To me, it seemed naive. 

When Translucents dream, we know we are dreaming.

 

 

And then there came the day I realized. 

Then there was the boy who looked into my face. The boy who saw me. The boy who had been watching me for months, while I thought I was watching him. 

How could he see me? 

How?

I was still backed against the nursery wall, where I’d been for several minutes. Frozen. The four other Translucents in the room were each watching me with one eye.

I sensed their gazes, and I knew should move.

I should pretend my whole world had not just been stuffed into a blender and liquefied. 

Their gazes told me to move, but the gaze of the boy wouldn’t let me. It was stronger than theirs. It was paralyzing. 

My body was still trying to comprehend the unfamiliar feeling or fear. The unfamiliar feeling of feeling at all.

My mind was still trying to comprehend the boy. 

The living Opaque who could see me.

My thoughts raced. Why? How?

This had never happened before. In two thousand years, I’d never even heard of this happening. 

A theory formed at the back of my head. A desperate explanation.

It was a dream. 

What could it be but a dream? 

Those gingerbread eyes still bored into mine, but they shouldn’t be. They couldn’t be. 

This did not match the pattern of the world. 

 

I understand now. I have understood since the day I realized. 

I see how easy denial is. How effortless and how peaceful.

Why would anyone choose the violent storms and the crashing waves of truth over the calm, smooth lake of denial?

The unaccepting Opaques could not face the reality of death, so it was a dream. 

I could not face the boy’s bright eyes. 

Against all evidence, despite the fact that my dreams by no means resemble my life, it was a dream. I was sure. 

 

 

I stood that way, convincing myself of my unconsciousness, for a little over a day.

“It is a dream,” I would say, under my breath. “Only a dream. He can’t actually see you, because you are dreaming.” 

After a day of watching diaper changes and nap times, my protests grew weaker.

My reasoning made less and less sense.

_Maybe the Foundation lifted their ban on dreams, and the news has just not reached me. Maybe we dream like Opaques do, now. That has to be why._

I had heard rumours of that once being the case, before the Foundation revised the Code. No one really knows. There is little record of the world before the Revision. 

A different, more truth-loving part of my mind tried to pull me down to reality. 

That bastard. 

_If you are dreaming like the Opaques, everything would be off. Not just the boy. A diaper change would not still be the most exciting event of the day._

The truth lover had a point, I knew. I had heard descriptions of Opaque dreams before. Every aspect of them are warped. Flipped. The dream world is perpendicular to the real one.

Opposite. 

If I was dreaming, then I was parallel. Only one thing was different. An inconceivable, impossible thing, but still just one. 

Denial was crumpling into doubt. 

 

Another day, and doubt had melted into acceptance.

The boy was real. And he could see me. 

 

 

From his cradle, Jean spent most of his time with his face turned towards mine. 

His eyes trained on mine.

It did not matter where I stood in the room. Believe me, I tested that. I moved locations often. His gaze always found me again. 

I learned to ignore it. 

Whenever the boy’s stare would meet mine, I couldn’t break the gaze. So I would silence my thoughts instead. Wipe my mind blank. Thinking about my newfound visibility only frightened me, so I choose not to. 

A month passed this way. The Translucents who paraded in and out of that prison that the Kirsteins called a nursery gradually began losing interest in my changed countenance.

Except for Jean’s impossible gingerbread eyes, things were normal again. 

I was calm. I did not feel fear so often. 

 

 

I’m afraid we have reached another period of idleness. I will summarize for you again, because your amusement regarding my personal feelings and hardship is quite important to me. I want you to be happy. 

Boring you with the insignificant details would probably not make you happy, I’ll bet. 

So, for you, I’ll summarize. 

The months flew by with the boy and I coexisting. I was required to watch him, regardless of whether or not I wanted to. But he seemed to enjoy watching me. When he cried, he would find me standing near him and his wails would subside. 

I think my presence calmed him.

 

He grew. I watched his first steps. His tiny hand gripped the arm of the head nanny, using her as support. He shakily moved his stubby toddler’s legs, stumbling forward. Five steps before he fell. 

The people in the room broke into applause, cooing praise and words of encouragement. 

Thier Translucents looked on with dead eyes embedded in stony faces.

The boy ignored the attention. Gingerbread eyes found mine. Something in them told me he was searching for approval. 

I smiled at him. A knee-jerk reaction.

Jean’s face lit up. 

That was the first day I’d ever interacted with him. I’d been too scared before. 

 

I was obsessed with knowing whether or not he could hear me as well as see me. If I spoke to him in the tongue of the Opaques, would my words reach his ears? 

Would he be able to feel my touch? 

How many of his senses knew my existence? 

I was too cautious to speak to him, or do anything but remain a safe eight feet from his side. 

My curiosity was plaguing me. It was growing; strengthening. It took me over. 

 

I found myself smiling at him more and more often.

Do you really blame me? 

Babies are cute. Undeniably. I may be part of an unfeeling, immortal, all-powerful race, but I still know babies are cute. 

When they look at you with bright laughing eyes and fat cheeks lifted in a grin, showing a row of tiny pearls, you would have to be a monster not to smile back. 

And I’m not a monster. I don’t think.

 

Jean was eighteen months old when he said his first word. 

We were out in the garden, which was really more of a personal arboretum. The Kirstein grounds stretched for miles, and they certainly had the means to pay for gardeners.

The backdoor of the Kirstein mansion opened into an open field. In the spring time, the grass was green and lush and the cherry blossom trees which surrounded the field flowered, wrapping the area in a dusty pink blanket of petals and branches. Patches of white tulips, lilies, and daffodils were strategically placed to mimic wild flowers. The gentle spring breezes which blew through the clearing swayed the flowers and the tree branches back and forth, making the whole clearing dance. 

A stone pathway wound around the field, bordering the line of trees. Iron benches dotted the path every twenty feet or so. We were clumped around one of these. A blanket was spread onto the thick green grass a few feet from the bench. On it sat the head nanny, who was simultaneously trying to crochet mittens and make sure Jean was still in one piece. Her Translucent stood beside her. 

Jean was exploring. He loved to explore. Every ant and every leaf fascinated him. The boy could watch an ant hill for hours, observing the tiny creatures going about their day. He never once interfered. He never harmed one of them. He was content with just watching. 

I humoured myself by thinking that perhaps, I had found an Opaque who had appreciation and love for the understated beauty which was invisible to most like him. 

It was a peaceful day. Bees hovered over the patches of flowers, buzzing from bud to bud. The sky behind the fluffy white clouds was a vibrant blue. 

Jean had found a perfectly round black stone, which he was clutching in his palms. He analyzed it for a few minutes before putting it to his pink little baby mouth. 

The head nanny lifted her face. 

“Jean, put that down,” her sharp voice called. She was a Nanny McPhee sort of character. The resemblance was striking, actually. 

He looked at her, popped the stone back into his hands. He looked at me. 

He held his arms out towards me, the stone still cocooned by his palms. Showing me. 

He shuffled towards me. 

Usually, I kept a barrier of at least three feet between us. Three feet was safe. 

But his little face was so eager. 

He reached me. His arm was still held out to me, the stone on his palm. He waited. 

I knelt down, until my face was level with his. I put my hand over the stone, and over his little hand. Covering them both. Our two hands held the stone, together. 

How odd it was to feel living flesh against my skin. His hand was warm. I wondered how mine felt to him. 

“Mm,” he said. 

I looked at him. 

“M-Man,” the word stumbled out of his mouth. 

The head nanny abandoned her spot on the picnic blanket and her partially formed mittens in order to see why Jean was holding a stone out into thin air. She stood by his side. 

The cool stone still pressed into my flattened palm.

“What is it, Jean?”

“Da Mm.”

“Are you trying to say something?”

“Da Man.” 

Still smiling, he pointed a chubby finger at my face.

The man.

\--

 

“So. Marco. I’m a little confused. Why have you decided to reveal yourself now? What’s in this for you?”

“I’m...taking the offensive.”

“I don’t understand.” 

“I’m tired of running, and I’m tired of being afraid.” 

“Why are you afraid? You are safe here.” 

“I will stop being afraid when I know he is safe.”

“Marco, you’ve lost me again. I’m not following. What has you so scared? What were you running from? You’re safe here, I’m sure. We have the means to protect you, you know.”

“I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere.”

“What? Why? Whoever you're running from, Marco, they can't get you here.” 

“There’s one of them right next to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! :) 
> 
> As always, any feedback would be awesome. 
> 
> Just like you. You're awesome.


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